Elizabeth Mayne - Lord Of The Isle

Morgana sat back, staring at him blank-faced, appalled. Every word he’d uttered rang as a true and dangerous threat, to her ears. She closed her lips, which had parted with dismay, and folded her hands into her lap, saying nothing.

The fine sand trickled through the glass, making a minuscule white hill on the bottom. Morgana looked once at the hourglass, then back at the O’Neill’s cold and heartless face. She wasn’t going to engage in a test of wills with him. There was no purpose in doing that. She’d lose.

In fact, she realized belatedly, she’d already lost.

She would rather die than spend one minute in the same space as James Kelly. Morgana rose to her feet and crossed the room to the fireplace, picked up her boots and yanked out the crumpled tissue Brigit had stuffed inside them.

Hugh watched her jerk each boot onto her bare feet and deliberately tie the laces. He did not bother telling her she could not leave the room.

Loghran O’Toole guarded one door, Kermit Blackbeard the other. Did she try to run, she’d not live to regret it. Either would cut her throat before she had the chance to let out a single scream.

Bored with watching her fumble with the laces of her boots, Hugh looked at the hourglass, counting the time that remained. “Your ten minutes are rapidly running out, lady. Personally, I find your silence at this critical moment appalling.”

“Go to hell, O’Neill!” Morgana muttered as she got to her feet again. She barely retained control of her rage.

“Do you play the game to suit me, my rewards to you will prove more generous than Walsingham’s ever would be. I might be amenable to allowing you to remain at Dungannon as my mistress for a time. Do you serve me well, you’ll be adequately pensioned after.”

Morgana paused at the mullioned windows to take a deep, calming breath. She glanced back over her shoulder as she twisted the lock on the window and pushed it open. A cold breeze caressed her cheek. Hugh O’Neill sat on his chaise as if it were a throne, watching her with the dispassionate eye of a Roman emperor.

Oh, his cold black eyes moved coveteously over her person, cataloging each movement that she made; but he was as blind to what she really was as the stones of his castle. Morgana swung her head and stared out the open window. The sky had cleared from the north to the east. A pale moon hung like a battered pewter cup in the dark, starless sky.

Beyond the window frame a soft, formless shape floated on the rising mist. Two hands stretched out opened palms of welcome to Morgana. The shade’s soft, keening voice brushed across Morgana’s eardrum, not registering any audible sound.

Don’t trust him, cried Catherine Fitzgerald. He is the O’Neill. All his people think it so. I have waited long years for a kinsman to come. You must help me, Morgana. Blood must stand for blood.

Morgana’s heart made a fierce racket under her ribs, banging against her breastbone. She swallowed and stared straight through the ghostly shape between the window frame and the distant hills. She refused to look down at the water in the lake. Water frightened her so. It always had and always would. If she was lucky, she’d hit the rocks and she wouldn’t have to suffer the agonizing death of suffocating by drowning.

You must help me, sweetling, Catherine wailed, her lament sadder than the keen of little Maoveen when she had mourned the passing of Shane O’Neill. I’m so lonely and lost.

Agitated by the unaccountable rising of the wind, Hugh unclasped his hands, which had been deliberately laced to passive stillness over his flat belly.

He raised his voice to gain the woman’s immediate attention. “Shall I point out to you now, woman, that your silence serves only as an admission of guilt to all the charges I’ve laid on you?”

He baits you. Don’t listen to him! Catherine swirled in through the open window, circling her great niece as she spun on angry heels to confront the man. Listen to me!

“You are free to point out anything you like to a lowly creature such as I, O’Neill,” Morgana said. “Count yourself right about one thing. There will never be a thirteenth Fitzgerald earl of Kildare. Without me, Sean’s life is forfeit. I pray God you are right about one more thing. May there never be another O’Neill of Tyrone to strike terror into the hearts of the women and children of Ireland.

“Now I understand why Aunt Catherine chose to take her own life rather than live in this castle, married to an O’Neill!”

No! Catherine wailed. I didn’t! Stop! You foolish girl! Stop her, Hugh O’Neill!

Morgana bounded onto the window ledge, crying out, “Goodbye, O’Neill! Till we meet each other in hell, sir, I bid you farewell!”

Hugh uncoiled from his chair. “What in God’s name do you think you are doing?”

His shout reverberated off the coffered ceiling. Loghran and Kermit burst through opposite doors of the chamber instantly, dirks drawn and ready, expecting to find Hugh in a struggle for his life.

They ran past each other in the center and spun round, back-to-back, visually sweeping each dark corner.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” O’Toole sprang to the open window and threw his long body across Hugh’s kicking legs to anchor him inside the room.

“What?” Kermit bellowed. “Have you lost your mind, O’Neill?”

“Don’t stand there jawing!” hollered O’Toole. “Help me pull him back in! The bloody woman jumped out the window!”

“Is she mad?” Kermit wasted words and breath, but no time, as he threw his own crushing weight over Hugh’s hips, pinning them to the window ledge.

“Christ Almighty, are you trying to emasculate me?” Hugh thundered. “Get off my bloody cods and give me a hand out the bloody window, you fool. I’ve got her. I just can’t pull her back.”

Dumbfounded, Kermit pulled back enough to yank open the other window. He bent halfway out over the sill, stretching, trying to reach Hugh’s hand. The woman spun by one arm, twisting back and forth, her wild feet kicking her skirts in the wind. Hugh’s fingers were as white as Dover chalk where they clenched the bones of her wrist.

“Cut her loose,” Loghran ordered, telling Kermit exactly how to wield the long knife he still clasped in one hand. “Chop off her hand. Save the O’Neill!”

“You do, and so help me God, I’ll throw both of you down on top of what’s left of her body,” Hugh growled ferociously. A mighty shout followed as he jerked the woman up, catching hold of her clothing with his other hand. The laces on her vest held. “Morgana! Give me your left hand!”

Kermit groped down Hugh’s sleeve, feeling for his wrist, stretching as far as he dared. His eyes bulged like the tendons in Hugh’s forearm. Just beyond his fingertips, a clump of bunched cloth tore audibly.

The woman’s fingernails scraped and clawed at Hugh’s hand. The bloody-minded creature tried to pry his fingers from her wrist.

Kermit closed his eyes and clamped his fist on that talonlike hand of vicious, clawing fingers. The fingers crushed under his. He slapped his other hand over her wrist and grunted, hauling what resisted up to him. She felt like ten hundredweight of stone.

“I’ve got her.” Hugh gasped. “Loghran, for the love of God, give me some help. I can’t hold her much longer.”

“Don’t! Let me go!” Morgana snarled. She kicked her feet and spun around, only to twist violently back to where she’d begun.

Taller than either Hugh or Kermit, Loghran shifted his weight no more than necessary to keep Hugh from following the stupid woman to her death on the rocks. He unhooked his belt and positioned himself carefully, never taking most of his body weight from O’Neill’s legs.